


Bad Penny

by Princess_R



Category: Iron Man (Movieverse)
Genre: F/M, Shirt Porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-04
Updated: 2010-06-04
Packaged: 2017-10-09 22:03:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/92081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess_R/pseuds/Princess_R





	Bad Penny

Pepper remembered the first time she'd seen that shirt. He'd been wearing it to tune up the Shelby. That was Before. It was completely inappropriate (for anyone else, which is why it was perfectly Tony, she admitted) to wear a white tux shirt with the tails hanging out and the cuffs loose because he'd decided he'd rather work on the Shelby than talk to one more reporter/socialite who wanted to blog about whatever it was they blogged about. Pepper disdained blogs. Mostly because they always relegated her to Gal Friday, and she was way more than that to Stark Industries.

He looked up from the engine, his hair doing that thing it did when he was sweaty and concentrating, where it fell in his eyes and curled a little bit, and Pepper sighed. "You're going to ruin that car if you keep balancing your scotch on the engine block."

"Will not. It washes out."

(Just like the grease on that shirt, she thought.)

**

The second time Pepper saw the shirt, she wasn't sure it was the same one. Not right away anyway. It was After. At an event. They were going to dance, but instead he cornered her on the balcony.

He had a hundred shirts to wear with his tuxedo. But somehow he'd ended up in that one. She recognized it, and the three undershirts he wore to keep the reactor from showing through. To keep from scaring people with what he'd become. And the shirt didn't take anyone home.

She pilfered one of his cuff links when she sent it to the cleaner's. She didn't think he'd notice the petty act of larceny, and it had been close to him, tucked in that slightly fraying hole on his cuff. It was warm, she imagined still warm from his hands.

**

By the third time Pepper saw the shirt, she'd begun to wonder if it was fate. She found it draped across a chair in his living room, abandoned when he'd started working on the suit. It had started to take an impression from being pulled taught by his shoulders over the reactor in his chest.

She'd been inches from his heart, and even though she was normally the pragmatic sort, not prone to swooning, she recalled the day her hands had been covered in his goop. The shirt had been there then, too, forgotten in a corner, wadded up.

This time the act of larceny was complete as she decided the shirt was clearly meant to be hers. She tucked it in her oversize bag, the entire time feeling guilty. Like he'd notice it was gone. There was no way, but she had never been particularly good at sneaking. She felt like the guilt was flashing from her forehead.

At home, she curled up with a glass of wine.

In his shirt.


End file.
